Forum rules

Please, keep discussions on topic and in the right forum. The start menu topics go into the Classic Start Menu forum, etc. This makes it easier for people to locate topics they are looking for.If you get a satisfactory response to your question, please mark the topic as "solved". Click the green √ button in the bottom-right of the post.

Classic Shell's Start Menu is fully supported on Windows 10 as well as the Classic Explorer and IE features. Classic Shell will also continue to support Windows 8/8.1 and Windows 7. For Windows 10 Anniversary Update or future Windows 10 releases, see this blog post: http://winaero.com/blog/fix-classic-she ... ry-update/

Windows 10's Search/Cortana Search is broken and often does not return the correct search results even if the file or shortcut exists on your drive. It also sometimes completely breaks because it is poorly designed to do a round-trip to the web to return local search results. And it always does an incomplete job of searching your local PC, that is, it never reliably finds everything, search results are highly inconsistent.

The main feature of Windows 10's Start Menu is Live Tiles. Live Tiles cannot be used in Desktop (Win32) apps because Microsoft didn't allow that. To use Live Tiles APIs, your app must be a Universal Windows Platform (UWP) app, so Live Tiles are out of the question for Classic Shell. Plus, Classic Shell's philosophy is backward compatible design. Live Tiles don't fit into this design. Live Tiles are not designed with usability in mind for mouse users - medium and larger sizes take too much space and the small size does not show titles. There are many other limitations to Live Tiles too - you can't easily change their icon, can't launch them by keyboard accelerators, can't pin multiple tiles or select them at once in Windows 10. You can't even rename them!

If you are always using the latest Windows 10 Insider Builds, Classic Shell usually always has issues on these newest builds because Microsoft keeps changing Windows 10. These issues will be fixed after a stable, final (RTM) version of Windows 10 is released for that wave (Threshold 1, Threshold 2, RedStone 1 etc). Despite minor issues, Classic Shell should detect when you do a Windows 10 build upgrade and its self-healing functionality will kick in and repair any functionality that broke due to the upgrade.

If you want Windows 10 Start Menu features and ideas in Classic Shell's menu, see the discussion below. You are welcome to give your feedback and make feature requests.

What is it about the Windows 10 Start Menu that is desirable? Anything specific? Gadgets are better than Live Tiles and came first.

Gadgets could be placed anywhere, you could interact with them, expand them, resize them and the Gadget platform was open meaning you weren't restricted to a Store to obtain them. Also, Gadgets were graphically and functionally richer. In comparison, Live Tiles have the Metro style mono color design, can only be resized, and you can't do any interaction with them currently, so they are not as capable as Gadgets were. The "apps" that those Tiles open are ridiculously bad and keep changing.

Personally, I think Live Tiles are still no match for Gadgets so I always put back Gadgets on newer versions of Windows like Windows 8.1 and Windows 10.

You can put back gadgets from sites like www.gadgetsrevived.com. Plus, Microsoft hasn't opened up the possibility of third parties using Live Tiles in desktop apps. You need to convert the whole Win32 app into a Universal Windows Platform (UWP) app to use Live Tiles.

The only improvement I see in the Windows 10 menu is being able to pin items in the right side area and organize them into groups.

Personally I find that the second column is better utilized for showing expandable/cascading folders. Icons in the tray (notification area) for the apps you use already pretty much do what Live Tiles do except that they are not as space-hogging as Live Tiles. I see Live Tiles as just as gimmick on the mouse/keyboard-oriented Desktop. They were a good idea on smaller screen, touch devices where the Tiles are the only way to launch the app, they need to be larger for your finger. Or if Windows didn't have a separate notification area/notification center, then Live Tiles would've been useful to some extent.

I already cannot tolerate the fact that they got rid of Desktop Gadgets to push those Tiles.

Classic Shell does not force choices, it has unrivaled customization so such a big change even if it was possible and implemented will be optional.

Personally I find that the second column is better utilized for showing expandable/cascading folders. Icons in the tray (notification area) for the apps you use already pretty much do what Live Tiles do except that they are not as space-hogging as Live Tiles. I see Live Tiles as just as gimmick on the mouse/keyboard-oriented Desktop. They were a good idea on smaller screen, touch devices where the Tiles are the only way to launch the app, they need to be larger for your finger and there isn't a separate notification area.

Yup, that pretty much sums it up. It seems that Microsoft is planning to make "Metro/Modern-style" apps run in the desktop as windowed or fullscreen. That would be acceptable but these tiles inside the Start Menu sorry but no. They take too much space and look terrible on big screens.

I dont know if IVO has a copy of it installed to test that yet..., but chances classic shell wont be compatible right away (though, based on past experience it will be available some time before, or very shortly after the public release

I did a quick test last night. It works well, with 2 exceptions:* Replacing the start button doesn't work. The default button is OK* The "Windows XP Classic" style for the navigation pane causes the folder icons to become corrupted

Why did they bring back the start menu? Love windows 7 and 8 but I'm not looking forward to 10.

Hmmm... if you like Windows 7 Start Menu, you should be quite happy with Win10TP, which appears to work the same way.Frankly, I despise the non-cascading Start Menu, and was happy to see that CSM works fine on it!!

I've just tried win10TP and only different is there is a pretty useless startmenu.I also despise the windows 7 startmenu with non-cascading menu.Not much else differs what i can see. It's more like windows 8.2

Woohoo that's a testament to your clean implementation, Ivo, that it already works so well on the TP. Well done.

I've had just about enough of the "new" Microsoft Start menu. It's better than nothing but only about 20% as good as what you've already got in Classic Shell.

Edit: I've just installed Classic Shell. Your program actually fixes a new problem with a Taskbar that's been auto-hidden (basically without Classic Shell it won't open if you drag the mouse right to where the start button will appear).

-Noel

Last edited by NoelC on Fri Oct 03, 2014 9:06 am, edited 1 time in total.

I agree, the Windows 10 (8.2, whatever) start menu is useless, good thing we have CSM!!!

I've made a "feature request" already for this, but I would love a new option in Classic Shell, to disable the new Find and Task View button (which are also useless to me, they sometimes even overlap my task icons).

Thanks again for ClassicShell, I would never use Windows 8/.1/+2 without it!!

Don't know whether this is a bug or a feature, so I'm treating it as a feature.

I've installed Classic Shell 4.1.0 in the Windows 10 Technical Preview. The Windows 10 taskbar has new buttons for Search and Task View. I have no pinned items on my taskbar. Classic Shell seems to place taskbar buttons for running programs just to the right of the Classic Shell button, so the first few are in the same place as the new Search and Task View buttons. The Search and Task View buttons seem to be set to be always on top, which means the first few running program buttons are hidden.

Classic Shell either needs to include an option to hide these new buttons, or needs to place the first running program's taskbar button just to the right of the Task View button.

The first non-Microsoft app that I installed was Classic Shell 4.1.0 and to my joy it basically worked 99 percent, with mostly the familiar "look and feel" of the way it operates under Windows 8, so thankfully there's little or no disruption.

It basically does away with the new approach of Windows 10 that does away with the full-screen tiled apps and instead displays a "fly-out" much smaller group of tiles.

There are a few minor things that will need to be tweaked for Windows 10, and although it's early days I'm wondering what are your plans for Windows 10, Ivo?

anything windows 10 related (thats not happening on other versions) should be treated as a bug.. though if desired its a good idea to point it out..Also Classic shell will not be working on anything windows 10 related for a while, because it is bound to change conciderably, and theres no point squashing bugs that might not even be there in the official version

I've installed the latest Classic Shell on the Windows 10 trial release (running in a virtual machine) so, since it isn't offically supported, this falls between a bug report and a feature request - I've posted it in here as it would be a bug in an official release. The program appears to work as would be normal in Windows 8.1 in all the aspects I have tried so far, apart from one thing. When Classic Shell is running with the Aero start button selected, the left hand two icons of programs pinned to the "Quick Start" taskbar disappear underneath the "Search" and "Task View" icons that Windows 10 automatically places on the task bar. It is possible, by moving visible pinned icons around to change the two that are hidden under the W10 icons, so as a workaround I have pinned two extra programs that I don't use from the task Bar, and pushed them under the W10 icons, thus having all the ones I use sticking out and visible. Selecting the "Classsic" start button only covers up about one and a half icons, but the same problem exists. Turning off Classic Shell altogether immediately restores the status quo and the hidden icons are revealed again. I assume it will be fixed in an official Windows 10 release, but I thought I'd mention it in case it hadn't been spotted yet. I hope the information is useful.

I installed Windows 10 Technical Preview on my secondary laptop over Windows 8.1. I was using Classic Shell with Win 8.1. The Win 10 install went well, however, after the install, I was having trouble with the Search function - it just didn't work - and the Store didn't seem to be working correctly. I removed Classic Shell and everything seems to be working OK now. I do not know which version of Classic Shell I had, but it probably was not the latest. Anyone else using Classic Shell with Win 10? Any comments, good or bad? Should I reinstall Classic Shell, the latest version, of course?

I have the same problem as Galen with icons on the taskbar being hidden when Classic Shell is installed.

Thank you for the workaround, Galen.

It is interesting that Windows 10 allows the user to design his or her own start screen but, having been through the Windows 8 Metro and touch-screen experience, I now know what I need and prefer for my desktop PC and it is provided by Classic Shell without any effort on my part. I am assured and do hope that Windows 10 has more to offer than this.

Hello, long time no see "Classic Shell" Developer Team. I'm one of your very old users. I've been absent from community very long. But I use classic shell since new born.But lately I start to stick in Linux a lot and I start to low down my activities usages on windows8.1Today seems the wind blow me here to Classic Shell forum so I decide to give my test review a little bit to give a hope for Classic Shell.Also I've found something unexpected

Only you've to check what's lack with Windows 10 only. Like right now as you see that:1. When you click at Start Screen Metro the "Classic Shell" will swaping between "New Windows 10 Start Menu".That's because the default Windows 10 now is set to Start Menu from Metro

2. To Turn it back check off the box of [ ] Use the Start Menu instead of the Start Menu.It will require you to logoff to restart the Windows & you can click the metro like Windows 8.1 before in Classic Shells. 3. After a bit reviews I start to check my system with Hwinfo64 Seems they report Windows 10 is still Windows 8.1!? I wonder is Windows 10 Technical Preview B9841 is a "Windows 8.1 Pro B9600 In A Patch"? :lol:

Hope my exploration can be some help to Classic Shell Team not much or less.

I found that if you go to Classic Shell's settings and tick "show all settings", then under "Start Button" untick "Replace Start Button", you then get a sort of empty Windows logo icon for the start button in the usual place, all the other icons can be seen, and everything works just fine. Classic Shell works as it should - I haven't found any other problems with it yet - so, with luck, it may well just need that one thing fixing before releasing the Windows 10 version.

One problem I have identified is that, using the blank Windows logo, I cannot access the Windows 10 right-click menu in the bottom left-hand corner, which gives me quick and easy access to, for example, 'Command Prompt (Admin)'. The way round this is to exit Classic Shell, right-click and select the desired item and, when finished, start Classic Shell again. To facilitate this I have pinned Classic Start Menu to the taskbar. Not a very elegant solution, but maybe you can come up with a slicker method.

@hrlngrv, This bug happens only if you replace the Start button on Windows 10 Technical Preview. Uncheck the option to replace the Start button and use the built-in button then this won't happen. As Jcee said, Classic Shell will support Windows 10 when a stable/finished/RTM build or at least RC is available - one that does not change significantly over time.

I believe in later builds of Windows 10, there will be a way to unpin/remove these buttons if you don't need them. There has got to be otherwise unofficial in-memory patches like WinTHButtonHider will be abundantly available. In fact I won't be surprised if there is already a way to hide these via the Registry, and may we just need more Process Exploring.

Disclaimer: Third party apps recommended in this forum are only for your convenience. In no way can Classic Shell be held responsible for anything that happens to your PC from using these third party apps.

Within the constraint IVO mentioned, ClassicShell works amazingly well in Windows 10 Enterprise x64 Technical Preview. I think it's a testament to how well programmed it is that everything works. It even solves the issue where an auto-hidden Taskbar is reluctant to come out if you push the mouse cursor to the standard Windows Start button.

It's also true that Windows 10 isn't really anything more than Windows 8.2 right now, so it's not surprising most things work.

I don't know why Microsoft doesn't buy the IP for Classic Shell from you, Ivo, and just integrate it into Windows. It's a far better implementation than anything they've done - or than they're doing.

Thank you guys for so enthusiastically testing Classic Shell on Windows 10 and sticking to it! Of course, Classic Shell's Start Menu is several times better than what Microsoft has built. Check out the comparison yourself: viewtopic.php?t=2399

Because Windows 10 is currently only in a Technical Preview stage and Classic Shell hasn't been fully updated to work with it, some things may or may not work. That's completely normal. Classic Shell can be updated *after* Windows 10 reaches a stable build.

For now, you have 2 options for the overlapping buttons problem. Either uncheck the option "Replace Start button" on the Start Menu Style tab in Settings. This will give you back the default Windows 10 button, instead of a custom button of your choice but the Start Menu and Taskbar will work properly.

Another option is to check "Replace Start button" in Classic Start Menu settings, and then additionally, use a small tool called 'WinTHButtonHider' to hide the Search and Task View buttons: http://winaero.com/blog/how-to-hide-sea ... indows-10/ This way, it becomes exactly like Windows 8.1.

I believe Microsoft will provide a proper option in later builds to unpin/remove these buttons from the Taskbar.

@acbeaton, there is a setting for Classic Start Menu on the Controls tab. It lets you configure what happens when you right click the bottom left corner of the screen. You can set it to show the Power users menu (Win+X menu) that contains Windows system tools, or you can configure it to show Classic Shell's built-in context menu. The setting is called "Right click opens Win+X menu" and if you check it, you can access the Win+X menu normally and Classic Shell's own context menu using SHIFT+right click. Conversely, if you uncheck the option, you can access the Win+X menu using SHIFT+right click.

@acbeaton, there is a setting for Classic Start Menu on the Controls tab. It lets you configure what happens when you right click the bottom left corner of the screen. You can set it to show the Power users menu (Win+X menu) that contains Windows system tools, or you can configure it to show Classic Shell's built-in context menu. The setting is called "Right click opens Win+X menu" and if you check it, you can access the Win+X menu normally and Classic Shell's own context menu using SHIFT+right click. Conversely, if you uncheck the option, you can access the Win+X menu using SHIFT+right click.

If they did that, then we wouldn't get any sweet updates to classic shell

Though It would be great to have included in windows, Microsoft would definitely make a 'few' modifications to the source..Namely remove any convenient way to adjust the settings. (I would imagine they would keep menusettings.exe in the windows folder, for advanced users though.at-most they would add a start menu tab to the taskbar properties menu. with 2-3 options, which Id imagine as:Style (classic/xp/7/8/10 as options)Skin (with many of the skins options removed)

I've just tried win10TP and only different is there is a pretty useless startmenu.I also despise the windows 7 startmenu with non-cascading menu.Not much else differs what i can see. It's more like windows 8.2

I have to agree with the poster above who said they wouldn't use Windows 8+ if it weren't for Classic Shell. Exactly my thoughts. It's nice to be able to keep current and have the old functionality instead of the new useless thing that's supposedly fashionable.

Speaking of fashion... Isn't high fashion supposed to actually be popular?

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